Wednesday Links: Coney Island Edition
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Written By Reprise Media | July 5, 2006 | Share This
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Yesterday, gastrointestinal phenom Takeru Kobayashi continued his mastery of Coney Island’s annual July 4th hotdog eating contest. He broke his own 2004 record and won his sixth straight bout by inhaling 53 3/4 dogs in 12 minutes. Ponder the fate of runner up Joey Chestnut - he ate 52 and lost - then dig in to these all-beef links.
When too much trust is a bad thing Microsoft can’t seem to catch a break in its European and Asian anti-trust legal struggles. BetaNews says that the EU voted unanimously to begin fining the software giant for failing to comply with a 2004 anti-trust ruling. The full amount of the penalty is to be set next week, but it could be a huge wad of cash - 2 million euros a day, possibly backdated all the way to last December. Meanwhile, a South Korean court basically told Microsoft to get lost, rejecting the company’s challenge to a 32.5 billion won ruling and warning it not to appeal to a higher court. Ars Technica has the gory details.
Well, at least nobody got physically hurt Monday, Valleywag guest writer Garry Bibb wickedly parodied the ‘Google product cycle.’ How funny was it? So funny that it helped get some poor schmo canned for laughing too hard with a boss nearby. As if having to go to work on July 3rd wasn’t bad enough…
“Also, the, uh, paychecks were loaners, too” When National Semiconductor asked for some voluntary layoffs just before the July 4 holiday, 35 souls gave themselves up. Then they were asked to give up their iPods, which had been handed out to all employees less than a month before. The digital playback devices were distributed with great fanfare in the press, and many employees thought them gifts celebrating a “good fiscal year.” Pennypinching Scroogery, or honest miscommunication? A National Semiconductor spokesman said, “We thought (the iPod) was a natural extension of reaching employees, no different than a blackberry, notebook or a cell phone.” Uh huh.
Topics: Google, Legal Issues, Technology |